Fadnavis clears the air, says he chose Eknath Shinde

Making an attempt to clear the confusion over the last-minute surprise by the BJP to make Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde as the chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis, who is now the deputy of Shinde, said he had proposed to BJP leadership to make the rebel leader the new CM.

Fadnavis also admitted that he was not mentally prepared to assume the post of deputy chief minister, but changed his decision after a discussion was held with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and intervention by BJP president JP Nadda and Union home minister Amit Shah.

Fadnavis said that the BJP leadership believed that he should be part of the government as it was not right to run the government through an “extra-constitutional authority”.

Talking to reporters in Nagpur, Fadnavis said the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance had won the 2019 elections, but the mandate was “stolen”. So his party and the Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction came together for a “common ideology and not for power”.

“Our leaders Narendra Modi ji, Amit Shah and JP Nadda ji, and with my approval (the decision to make Shinde the chief minister was taken)…. It will not be wrong if it is said that I took this proposal (to the BJP leadership) that Shinde is made the chief minister and they (the leadership) accepted it,” Fadnavis said.

Shinde was sworn in as the chief minister on June 30 with Fadnavis as his deputy, a day after Uddhav Thackeray resigned as the CM ahead of the floor test.

“It was also decided that I will stay out of the government. But BJP president JP Nadda called me and said the party has decided to make me the deputy chief minister. Even Union Home Minister Amit Shah also spoke to me,” Fadnavis said. “I changed my decision obeying the orders of my leaders,” he added.